the voice, louder
by singing-along
Summary: Of course I'll be your friend, Padfoot said, inside his head, and six-year-old Remus found it easier to breathe again. Soulmate!AU. Implied Sirius/Remus.


**This is a sister-fic to my other oneshot, The Voice In His Head. Go check it out on my profile. You don't need to know the content of that fic to be able to understand this one, though!**

 **Please read and review!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own any recognisable characters or places.**

X

Remus' whole body ached. His right leg felt full of large splinters. His chest was raw and aching, and it was as though someone was trying to drill a whole into the throbbing back of his head. When he opened his eyes, the world tilted and swam before his eyes in a blur of white. Remus groped around for something to hold on to.

There was a little stuff-toy dog called Padfoot that Remus could not live without. He wondered where it had gone to. He wanted to be sick.

Then a cry, muffled and choked. "Remus!"

When the world finally stilled itself, Remus made out his Mum's face, large and slightly distorted, hovering just inches over him. He felt Mum's hands, reaching out to touch his cheek. And Mum's tearful eyes.

"You were so brave, Remus," Mum was saying shakily. "S-so brave. I'm calling Dad right now..."

Remus vaguely caught sight of a flash of silver. He could feel Mum's warm hand — still shaking, so hard — on his cheek.

Remus did not understand. "Wh-what h-happened?" His voice was raspy. He flinched at the sound.

The world was dimming again, swirling before his eyes. In that split second, though, he saw his Mum's eyes waver.

"It's nothing." Her voice was soft, the way it was when she sang lullabies for Remus when he was a baby, the way it was when she spoke to the little girl next door after she'd been bullied by Muggle kids. Remus wished he could curl up right into it. "When you were out with Daddy yesterday, you got attacked by a big bad — bear. But the Healers say you'll be fine now."

Everything was fading again, so fast, too fast, and Remus didn't understand what it was except that something was terribly wrong. He reached for Padfoot, his little stuffed dog and clutched it tight to his chest as the light fell away.

He could still feel Mum's hand shaking.

X

Remus dreamed of shadows.

The ground was littered with them, five thousand different shades of black and white. Trees arced over his head like ballerinas. The wind was a grey billow, the moon silver and swimming across the inky sky.

Then fangs. Silver and dripping and deadly in the cold light of the moon. A wolfish, liquid head tore into Remus' vision and slammed him into the ground. Remus tried to scream but he couldn't move an inch, suffocated by the stench of the beast's hideous, matted fur —

His heart was pounding faster than it had ever before, as though trying to burst out of his chest. He could almost taste the approaching pain, and his father was going to be too late. He wouldn't be able to reach there in time to save him—

As suddenly as it had come, the pressure on Remus' chest vanished. A second creature, a great black dog, was charging the wolf down, snout hitting it straight in the stomach and sending it tumbling away into the darkness.

In a second, the air was still again.

 _Padfoot_ , Remus said, wondrously. _Why, Padfoot?_

 _Because I'm your friend, Remus,_ the creature murmured, _and this time, you're where I can save you._

X

Remus' parents told him the truth two days after he was discharged from St. Mungos, when they'd decided that he'd be strong enough to cope with the news.

Remus didn't think it could have made any difference. He curled up in his bed and found books in his Mum's study to read. Books about magic and a wonderful place called Hogwarts. As the sun melted up and down the greying autumn sky, he pictured the giant squid, and suits of armour, and ghosts that glided through solid walls and sang Christmas songs.

There were no wolves at Hogwarts, of course. Remus thought about that wolf in his dream, with its matted fur and terrifyingly cruel eyes. Wolves were evil, would always be dark.

Remus would too.

At this, Remus would invariably slide off his bed and stare at the empty ceiling, holding Padfoot up to his face. The little stuffed toy stared at him with its beady eyes, and Remus' fingers sifted through its furry dark coat. He wondered if Padfoot would still be his friend, given what he was.

 _Of course I'll still be your friend, Padfoot would say,_ in his mind. Remus would stare at the little stuffed toy with its beads for eyes and carefully attached cotton for fur, and wonder what was happening. Perhaps he was going mad. Remus wouldn't be surprised.

Yet as he held it tight to his chest and gasped for breath, though, Remus would find himself able to breathe again.

X

There was a book in his Mum's study about a witch who heard a voice in her head that wasn't her own. Unlike those in stories of Dark magic, though, this voice, separate from her own, did not drive her mad or kill her in her sleep. Instead, it comforted her. When her brother was captured by a dark sorcerer, it gave her all the encouragement and strength she needed to save him.

The voice turned out to be that of a real person's — that of a wizard whom she met shortly after and fell in love with, a wizard who turned out to be her soulmate.

X

Remus' parents did the best they could. The cleared all the piles of old toys, faulty equipment and dusty boxes out of the storage room. They charmed colours onto the narrow walls and attached a lightbulb to the corner of the ceiling to make the place a little brighter.

The full moon's night was cold, though, and the air was yellow and sickly. Halfway to midnight the solitary bulb started flickering.

There was an ache deep within Remus' shivering bones. A tide from above, from outside, from the sky torn far away from this room and its four narrow walls seemed to sway his heartbeat and tugged at his insides. The colours on the wall swam nauseatingly before his eyes, all bright and sick and terribly wrong.

That was all Remus knew, because then his body ripped itself apart at the seams and the world tore away in a shower of blood and pain.

X

Padfoot was alive again, and bigger than any stuffed toy could be. He was warm as Remus' quivering body curled up against him, warm fur in Remus' hands and beneath his head, warm tongue slowly licking at Remus' cheek. When a sudden light emerged from above, blinding and disorienting, Padfoot shifted and blocked it out, nuzzling his' neck.

 _It's going to be alright, Padfoot whispered,_ clear and deep in Remus' head. His warm tongue flickered over a cut over Remus' eye. _It's going to be alright, Remus. I'll be here. Come on, you need to get some sleep..._

When Remus awoke in his bedroom later, Padfoot was nowhere in sight. He could still hear him, though.

And the warmth was still there. As always.

X

"Who are you?" Remus asked, afterward, careful to shut the door behind him after bading his parents goodnight. "Will we ever get to meet each other? What if we never do?"

 _Oh, Remus. You're supposed to be clever. Of course we'll get to see each other!_

Padfoot's voice was slightly teasing, but Remus curled up against his covers and clutched Padfoot to his chest, a familiar flicker of worry curling at the bottom of his stomach.

"You _are_ a real person, right? Or are you really just my stuffed dog? Can Soulmates work like that?" He paused again, biting his lip, a sinking feeling in his chest. "Or is it just me going mad?"

 _I'm not really your dog. I guess you someone just made that connection. I not know why either, but it doesn't matter, Remus. I'm your friend and I always will be. Come on, Remus, you need some sleep. I swear, by the time I count to ten —_

In spite of himself, Remus smiled.

He slipped his arms around Padfoot and imagined it was really _Padfoot_ , whoever, whatever they were. Somewhere in the world Padfoot was out there, and Padfoot would care, and Padfoot would be his friend, and he would meet him one day. Padfoot, Padfoot, _Padfoot_.

The bed was awfully comfortable, and his eyelids were heavy and itching with sleep. If he really was going mad — well, at least this particular brand of madness granted a peaceful night's sleep.

X

"I've just been chatting with Daphne last night, and she mentioned Alice... You do remember Alice, don't you?"

Remus perked up. He'd only met his little cousin Alice once, but he'd remember the brightness of her smile any time.

"Alice has been talking about hearing this voice in her head — a voice that's her friend, apparently. They've got her checked for signs of Dark enchantment, of course — what with all the rumours swirling around these days — but nothing showed up." Remus' Mum smiles sadly. "The Healers say that she's just lonely. Poor dear, she's awfully shy..."

"She isn't!" Remus' heart was pounding, his fork forgotten halfway to his mouth, suddenly so exited he could barely breathe. "Mum! I read this thing once! According to this book, people who hear voices like these hear the voice of their soulmates! Like..."

Remus paused, but the words had been pressing up in his throat for too long already, and they rushed out in an impulsive burst of excitement.

"Like me, mum! I hear it too!"

There was silence at the table. Remus stared awkwardly around at his parents' stilled expressions, suddenly not sure whether he'd said the right thing. The air seemed to waver. Slow embarrassment started to creep up his neck, hot and sticky. Now his parents were going to think that he's some lonely freak, too, worse still, so much so that he's become loony as well, and maybe they were right, too. Oh, God.

"Remus." His mother's voice was gentle. "Oh, Remus."

Her fork clattered shakily onto the table. She turned to him, and her eyes were shining, awfully over-bright. Sadness, Remus thought. So much sadness, and pity, perhaps. And regret, regret that seemed bone-deep within her, buried away far from his reach that welled up from somewhere out of sight — a dark sluggishness that permeated her features and the spaces in between them.

Remus looked at his hands and wondered at how these scrawny, child-like fingers had managed this. Remus was going to make his mother cry and he didn't even know what he had done, except that he as stupid and pathetic and loony and oh, they had been talking about Alice and her beautiful, beautiful smile, hadn't they? It had been a nice, normal day, and now things were spiralling down.

His mother held him, then. Her arms were shaking slightly, but she wrapped them around his middle and pressed his head gently against his chest. Her hands were warm against his back, and Remus could feel her shortness of breath, the hummingbird flutter of heartbeat, like the flimsy struggle of a hunted buck's last moments as wolves chased it down —

"Now, love, now... I'll keep you company... I'll be your best friend..."

He wanted to run. He wanted to break free of this cage of concern and run, far, far away. Deep into the woods on the other side of the house, across the mire, up onto the lonely hilltops and timeless mountains where nothing so mundane could reach him, nothing could lie. Nothing could get hurt.

He touched his mother's arm and gently pulled away. "Thanks, Ma."

He means it, he really does. Back in his room, he realises that it is not his mother that he is furious with.

X

There were collections of music in Remus' mother's room — albums of Beethoven and Schoenberg and Rachmaninov. Classical stuff, mostly, but they'd have to do. Remus liked Beethoven — especially the symphonies.

Once his mother gave her permission, he played on repeat on the little sound system in his mother's bedroom. A few bars in and he was standing up on the large wooden chair, grinning with excitement. He raised his arms and pretended that he was conducting whole orchestras under golden vaulted domes. He closed his eyes and imagined the taste of the sounds — gold, maybe? — not quite metallic, though, more like this whole spirit of light, lifting him upward by the lungs and propelling him skywards. Like sunrise behind the strength of a thunderstorm, passion pulsing through his arms.

He'd shoved his stupid stuffed dog under his bed and shoved an empty crate against it, but that was another matter.

 _I love them too, Remus... Oh, don't look at me like that! I'm still very much punk rock in my heart._

It didn't stop Padfoot from liking the symphonies, too.

It was useless. Remus used headphones, next, turning the volume up, up, up, so that a thousand violins screamed so thunderously that his eyes began to water. He turned it lower, and proceeded to press the palms of his hands against his ears, over the earphones, squeezing his eyes tight, as if to block out the world, to block out everything that would taunt him again, would —

 _That one is awful, Remus. I told you I liked Number Three more. Remus? What are you doing, Remus? What's going on?_

It was not fair. It wasn't. Remus' eyes watered. His ears seemed to be steaming. After all of blocking out the world, nothing could block out that... that voice. That voice that spoke directly into and from his head itself. The music, the trying, it was all useless. After all of blocking out the rest of the world, he had no control whatsoever over the contents of his own world, messed up and nonsensical and everything it may be.

"I want you to leave me alone," he tried, tiredly. "I'm not lonely."

There was a pause.

Alright, Padfoot finally said. His voice seemed a little hollow. I'm sorry, Moony.

Remus wanted to ask who Moony was, but decided against it.

And that was it.

X

Remus stumbled down the corridor of the Hogwarts Express, pressing his head as low as it would go and trying to avoid the odd looks thrown from students looking out of their compartments.

His robes were second-hand and a little disheveled, it was true. He had faint scars on his arms that must surely look peculiar. The students from the other compartment had just chased him out — green ties, older students from Slytherin, probably, towering over him, he should have been prepared.

He scammed the occupants of passing compartments, wondering who would be willing to take him in. The Hufflepuffs were really nice, according to his Mum. They wouldn't judge him for anything. Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were okay, if not a little eccentric. Basically most people were fine apart from Slytherins. It wasn't as if all Slytherins were evil, but the principles that the house had been built upon weren't exactly favourable to Remus. The students who already had houses were all older students, though, and the thought of approaching them to ask to join their group made Remus' stomach turn.

Rounding a bend, he came across a compartment with three boys. First-years, like him, perhaps, Remus guessed from the lack of colour-coded ties. They seemed nice, all messy hair and odd angles and cheerful, dimpled laughter. Remus bit his lip. It was either them or the fifth-year Ravenclaws in the other compartment — not even that threatening, but still, fifth years.

Bracing himself, he slid the door open.

"Can I sit here?" he started, not quite sure of what to say. The boys had stopped talking. Remus could feel the weight of their stare pressing in on him. His hand flapped involuntarily. "Sorry... I kind of got kicked out of my old compartment."

One of them — a messy-haired one — smiled at that point. He gestured to the seat next to him and grinned at Remus in welcome. "Sure, come in! My name's James, by the way."

Remus smiled tentatively at him and moved to enter the compartment, still wary of the two other boys. A plump, blonde one sitting opposite of James seemed as awkward as he was, and the other one, well —

He was staring at Remus, hard and intense, mouth slightly apart — not in an unfriendly way, though, shocked, perhaps, yes, very much shocked. Remus heart started an uncomfortable drumbeat in his chest. The boy didn't look like he meant any harm, but that's how they would usually look, though, wouldn't they, first shock, then the disgust, sinking in all at once —

There was a rather strained silence. When the boy finally opened his mouth, though, his voice was strained, as though he couldn't breathe, as though —

And he said —

"Moony?"

Remus' heart seemed to stop at the sound of those two syllables, at the voice that had shaped around them, that voice, that —

His heart was beating again, so fast, too fast. The silence grew strange and slightly alarming but it didn't matter at the moment.

"Padfoot?" he whispered, slightly choked, plenty, plenty breathless.


End file.
